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Is piracy a bad thing?

This sums up my feelings on this matter quite well. Piracy – perpetrated by various persons – introduced me to many of my current major obsessions. I’ve spent a considerable amount of money on memorabilia, money I would not have spent to take a chance on something I might or might not enjoy. Free samples are nice, of course, but they are almost never enough to give me a real idea of the quality of the material. The first 20% of a book on Amazon does not tell me whether there is artfully-constructed resolution at the end. If I like the complete product, beginning to end – like it enough to be willing to read it more than once – then I buy it.
Arr.

I don’t even know whether it’s all about making up for the act. I’ve watched things I simply didn’t like, and I didn’t continue to watch. I didn’t spend any money on it, but I wasn’t going to spend money on it anyway, so the creator has lost nothing. On the other hand, I’ve discovered a large number of creators I love and want to support, and I have proceeded to do so.

And yes, the majority (vast majority, I would say) of creators whose material is pirated aren’t suffering from the loss of a few dollars per download. The small-time artists who would suffer aren’t the ones being pirated, largely because there would never be enough seeders to sustain a p2p exchange. No one seeds something they’ve never heard of. Once everyone has heard of you, it’s assumed you have a degree of success, at which point you’re not suffering from the loss (and may actually be benefiting from consumers like you and me, who purchase after downloading).

It’s a very difficult system, and i don’t think it’s arranged in a way that makes sense. Maybe it made sense thirty years ago, when all the technology was physical, but now the only thing being ‘stolen’ is information, and the nature of information is to propagate.